


Brutality and Silence

by ItsClydeBitches



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cass Whump, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Prompt Fill, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7691098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/pseuds/ItsClydeBitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War is something Jesse Custer is used to, but a knock at the church door brings him a battle even he isn't prepared for. All that's left though, as with anything, is to stand and fight. </p><p>Written for the prompt: Unholy Trio is in a lot of danger and Cass tries to play hero. It results in him revealing he's a vampire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brutality and Silence

**Author's Note:**

> I had to drag this story out word by word... idk if it was just the dark subject matter or what, but it didn't write easy. Hope you all think it was worth it <3

There were two types of war in this world: the quick and the drawn out.

 

Quick ones were bar fights or street scuffles, the sort of confrontations that started out as nothing and ended with broken bones—or worse, a knife to the throat. They were characterized by dark alleys, shots, boot prints, teammates, improvised weapons, the overwhelming need to see blood before you finally earned the right to go home. No one was quite human during these fights. They were quick and dirty and a comforting constant in so many peoples’ lives. They were always over as fast as they started, otherwise _no one_ would walk away.

 

Yet the drawn out... well, they were exactly as the name implied. They weren’t so much fights as all-out feuds, the decades-long result of all those tussles in the bars and in the streets. These battles had a specific honor attached to them, the kind that was passed on from father to son, mother to daughter, whenever the war wasn’t won in a single generation. And it rarely was. The drawn out types were the logic to the quick fight’s brutality, victory built upon planning and strategy, rather than simply strength. It was patience that won this kind of war. Patience and a love of the game.

 

Jesse knew both kinds intimately. He understood how each thrummed differently in your blood. Jesse caught the exact moment their fight turned from Type One to Type Two.

 

And it had started out as such a nice night too.

 

Tulip was there. For the first time the three of them were in the church together without one of them preaching, and it was... unexpectedly calm. Jesse had claimed his pew weeks ago, Cass had his directly across, and not seeming to know which side to choose, Tulip had settled on the floor between them, back leaning against Jesse’s legs and her feet crossed daintily on top of Cass’. They’d spent a good hour shooting more shit about films, then television, than Tulip’s so-called cooking skills. Silly, unimportant things...

 

Jesse knew now that Tulip had slept with Cass. Cass knew that he knew. Tulip had told them both. Cass had admitted—in the ‘joking,’ yet unexpectedly blunt way of his—that he wouldn’t mind sleeping with Jesse too. Jesse had shocked Cass with his reciprocation. He shocked Tulip more was his lack of a fit. Apparently Cass was the exception here as he was with everything else. Before they knew it they’d settled on something resembling an agreement, laid out only through cheesy movie one-liners, exaggerated declarations (that truly weren’t exaggerations at all), and the vaguest of actual references. All of this…it seemed to be enough for them, odd as that was.

 

It was the simplest, yet the most honest conversation they’d had to date.

 

Thus it was in this peaceful space—the first Jesse thought he’d experienced in years—that a knock came at the door.

 

Cass paused with the bottle halfway to his lips. He nudged Tulip’s feet. “Who the bloody hell knocks at a church?”

 

“Someone who doesn’t expect entry,” she said quietly. Jesse nodded and stood.

 

Tulip knew as well as him that the church was always open in Annville. No locks or latches on the window. If someone had business here they also had access twenty-four seven. Even business of the unsavory variety. More than one piece of cheap furniture had been nicked in their time, but even that, apparently, was still servicing the community. No reason to send a message of distrust in response, no matter how warranted. The doors remained open.

 

In fact, as Jesse traversed the long hall he realized that there were only two times in recent memory when someone had bothered knocking at Annville’s church: The day that the service workers had come for Tulip, and the men who’d come for his father. They’d knocked so politely before bashing his face in, obliterating the rest of it as he kneeled before Jesse.

 

Whatever was behind that door, it wasn’t good.

 

Tulip and Cass were thinking the same. By the time Jesse was halfway down the hall both had stood, legs tight and arms up, prepared to swing. Tulip smashed her bottle in one hand and pulled a dagger out of her boot with the other. Cass merely loosened his jaw.

 

When Jesse had his hand on the church door, all three of them were ready. He created a crack between them and the outside world—a sliver just large enough to reveal a slit of Odin Quincannon’s face.

 

“Hello, Preacher.”

 

Here’s another thing about wars: they start on a dime. No sooner had Odin said those words than Donnie slipped between them, forcing his not inconsiderable mass against the doors. Jesse felt the weight of at least three other men and loosened his feet, letting his body roll with the momentum. He landed hard on his side and immediately skid between the nearest pews.

 

“Spread out!” he yelled.

 

Tulip and Cass didn’t need to be told twice. They split at his words, taking either side of the church as men—more men than Jesse honestly would have expected Odin to have a hold over—swarmed in like flies. Or perhaps something with a bit more of a kick. Wasps. Hornets even. Jesse felt such a sting on his leg as a burley fellow grabbed hold, his overgrown nails digging into Jesse’s ankle. His fingers were like the meaty sausages Odin prized and Jesse could feel the sweat straight through his pants. The blood too. All of them had shown up in their jumpers, straight from the slaughterhouse, and Jesse couldn’t help but think that their day’s work wasn’t over yet.

 

...how right he was. Jesse planted his boot in the guy’s face and enjoyed the echoing crack of cheekbone.

 

A good way to make him let go.

 

Jesse rolled, up on the pew now and running along it because another man had immediately taken the first’s place. With the extra height their hands missed and Jesse was able to gain some distance, pivoting fast when he met the church’s wall and letting his punch arc fast through the air. He didn’t see who he was hitting until they’d already crumpled and by then another was smack in his place. Jesse scowled in time with his swings, fully disgusted at the swarm of blue that had overtaken his church. Didn’t matter how scared you were of your enemy: you didn’t pit an army against three.

 

Not that Jesse was overly worried. Across from him Tulip was well holding her own, lithe body skittering in and out of the massive men. While snapping a wrist Jesse saw her drop down low and pull off her heels in one smooth motion. The second they clattered to the floor her speed doubled and three men were still falling even as she moved onto a new pack. Jesse grinned.

 

Cass, bless him, had immediately dived for the rowdier crowd, heading off those with guns and wicked knives, knowing full well he was the most equipped to handle them. Sure enough Jesse found him backed against the pulpit, their gaze locking just in time for Cass to take a slash in his upper arm. It was shallow... but it was also first blood. Confirmation that whatever had started wouldn’t have an easy end. Jesse pushed up his sleeves, Tulip threw off her jewelry, and the three of them went at it like never before.

 

Truly, because ten minutes in Jesse realized that this wasn’t a bar fight tossed into a church. This was personal, the kind of personal that got deadly, too fast to pull back from, with each man who took a stab at them not caring if the hit led to a kill. While knocking out one of the skinner guys Jesse caught sight of Odin himself, safe beyond the church’s doors, just waiting in a goddamn bulldozer like a king on his throne. Didn’t take a genius to figure out what that machinery was for. If the fight wasn’t serious before, it sure as fuck was now.

 

With his twelfth man down Jesse had had enough. He opened his mouth to let Genesis loose on them all—

 

—which was when a rag fell wooden onto his tongue.

 

Hello, Judas.

 

He came from behind, catching Jesse unaware with a swift kick to the back of his knees. More pressing than this though was the filthy material that now coated his lips and bulged out his cheeks, making it impossible for Jesse to let any words free. He made to tear it from his mouth but his hands were busy breaking his fall, and a moment later there were three more upon him. Through the window of a guy’s arm Jesse could still see Tulip, momentarily distracted by his plight. It let them get a sweep of a rifle over the back of her head, the crack splintering his group with finality. Jesse heard Cass roar... but what was there for him now? Two players out just gave them more men to pile on him. Jesse would swear he heard the splatters of blood as Cass ripped into as many of them as he could... but even that wasn’t enough. Within moments it was over.

 

They dragged Jesse to the front of the pulpit—Cass bloody on his left, Tulip limp on his right. All three were forced to their knees and Jesse looked up as Odin finally entered.

 

This here was war.

 

“Uh huh,” Odin said. He let his boots pound hard with each step. “You think you’re scary like that, don’t-cha, preacher? Maybe you are. Not without those fancy words of yours though. Yep, Odin ain’t blind to the strangeness goin’ on in his town...”

 

He rambled, filling Jesse’s church with all manner of violent nonsense. Odin spoke of the fall of Jesse Custer and, by extension, the fall of God himself. The rise of his own meat deity. The saving of the town. Jesse let his voice echo off the rafters—it gave him more time to try and loosen his bonds.

 

The rope Donnie had tied was thick though, and expertly looped. Jesse tongued at his gag in an attempt to push it forward, but it took up the entirety of his mouth, leaving nowhere else for it to go. It was also just far enough back to really gag him. Jesse hung his head in an attempt not to vomit. Odin noticed.

 

“Kick ‘em in the stomach,” he said, like ordering a drink, and Donnie’s leg rose up in Jesse’s vision.

 

“ _Wait!_ ”

 

He thought it was Tulip... but when he looked Jesse found that she was still sitting only thanks to two brutes, her head heavy and a dark patch matting her hair. He swallowed the rage and turned instead to his other half. It was Cass. Cass who’d made that high-pitched cry.

 

Whatever terror Cass might have been feeling, he covered it up quick. Jesse saw the exact moment his limbs went from ‘submissive’ to ‘deliberate sprawl.’ Cass looked back up with a familiar grin set in place. It no doubt ached.

 

“Now why would you go beatin’ the preacher when you could have me instead, hmm?”

 

“You mean why would I wanna hit him when it so obviously hurts you more?” and Jesse felt a crack against his jaw, a fist coming out of nowhere. His vision skewed but he still caught the ice flashing across Cass’ gaze. Beside him Tulip moaned.

 

“No,” Cass said, deliberately calm. His accent had grown thicker. “I mean, why are you tenderizing that meat when you’ve got a prime cut right here?”

 

It came out flirty, confident, and just this side of serious, making Jesse think that Cass really had something to offer—though what that was he couldn’t say. Still, Odin picked up on the tone… the odd mention of his fixation. He squinted beady eyes and leaned in _real_ close.

 

“What are you on about, boy?”

 

“Just sayin’, you want meat? Why not carve up the immortal vampire?”

 

_No._

 

Jesse’s world caved in and the universe gave absolutely no fucks, responding to his muffled screams with a stern middle finger, presented in the form of a curious Odin dragging Cass to the front. Despite all the violence he’d already experienced, it wasn’t something that Jesse knew how to conceptualize: the flash of a knife as Odin carved a chunk out of Cass’ arm—at Cass’ own, indifferent insistence—the stained blade digging into the neck of a shocked underling, Cass drinking, the maniacal laugh that escaped Odin as he saw flesh knitting itself back together.

 

Meat appearing before him. Like turning water into wine.

 

“String him up, boys!”

 

Jesse looked desperately to Tulip, but she remained still, frozen but for her left leg spasming weakly. The rope burning his wrists had become a beacon to hone in on. Jesse chaffed his hands back and forth, back and forth, feeling the fibers loosen just the tinniest bit each time. Not quick enough though. Cass caught his eye and saw that they needed more time. The fucker actually smiled.

 

_Time? Not a problem, padre._

 

There are moments in war that blur and moments that burn—this was one of the later. Jesse knew that whatever image Odin gave him would be seared into his mind for eternity and the only consolation was that, if there was a God, Jesse would someday meet him and shove said image so far down his throat that he shat it back out, for daring to let it exist in the first place. The image of Tulip beside him was already sending a roil of hatred coiling up around Jesse’s throat, choking him, and yet, paradoxically, it was Tulip who kept Jesse’s gaze locked on Cass. He was doing this for them.

 

Jesse would have to watch for them both.

 

The image then, was this: not a bloody battlefield. Not a mound of corpses, limbs, the curl of smoke in the distance. There was nothing stereotypical here that Jesse could read about in a history book—a strange honor that someone like Cass would never receive. No, it was just the image of one man. Not even a man by some standards, but certainly by Jesse’s. A man who hung shaking from the church rafters, huge chunks carved out of his thighs, calves, biceps, and cheeks. The thin meat of his stomach had been collected like strips of jerky. The blood pooled thick on the floor. Where Cass’ began and the sacrifice’s ended, Jesse didn’t know. Sooner rather than later they both became the same. Odin didn’t pause until the man he’d cut was drained and Cass no longer had the vocal cords to scream.

 

“Think I’ll keep you. Yep,” he said, eyes alight with something like faith. Perhaps there was something to be said for fate or destiny, because it was in that moment that Jesse snapped his bonds.

 

The men not broken or bloody had moved out, fearful that their leader would feed the vampire more than that first ten pints. Donnie still had his knife alongside Cass’ ear and Odin, of course, was watching. It gave Jesse all the space he needed.

 

He ripped the gag from his mouth and said only one word, letting it echo across the church:

 

“ ** _Die_**.”

 

Bodies dropped like flies.

 

This... _this_ was a war zone.

 

Heaving, shaking, Jesse stumbled to his feet. He kicked Donnie’s glazed face and tread across Odin’s neck, using them as step-stools to cut Cass down. He’d heard the order like all the others, body ragged as it fell atop Jesse’s shoulders, but soon enough it began to stir. Cass could die, but never for long.

 

Tulip was still... well, simply dead to the world, so to speak, though her eyelids were beginning to flutter. With Cass over his back and Tulip under one arm, Jesse crossed the length of his church for the very last time. He took them out beneath the stars, laying them gently in the dirt, letting his hands briefly grip each of their arms.

 

It wasn’t difficult to fish the lighter out of Tulip’s jeans, or watch his rickety church go up in flames. Easiest thing Jesse had done in a while, actually. He returned to his friends once the heat at his back rivaled the Texan humidity.

 

Jesse lay directly between them. Smoke flew out over his head, covering the stars.

 

A groan came from Tulip. A gurgle, nearly like words, from Cass. Jesse nodded and gripped tight to them both.

 

“Yeah. It’s finished.”

 

Type 2 then. The evidence of it choked Jesse, in smoke, carved flesh, blood stiffening hair. The truth of it ate at him.

 

Sometimes the longest wars were actually the quickest to end.

 

They left the most damage behind.


End file.
